Quote:
Originally Posted by Grinder12000
PH is way over rated and is not what you want to learn to fix. Go to the brew science forums and read the primer. It's an eye opener.
Fixing PH is like having a one number chlorestrial number you know the number but not how it's made. I just spent a week obsessing over water.
You can have great PH and horrible water.c all PH tells you is how your mash is. Not the rest of the story for making good beer.
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The Water Primer on the Brew Science is a good resource if you're willing to use RO or distilled water for your brewing. That is a step that not all brewers want to do or need to do. You need to know what is in your tap water to assess if you really need to use RO or distilled water in your brewing.
Understanding your water is an important step to making a broad range of beers. This is due to the fact that most brewer's water is suited for a narrow range of beers unless they are treating the water. Its no problem for me to brew brown and black beers with the water here in the Midwest US, but its a lot tougher to brew a nice lager unless I do a lot of treatment.
Obsessing over water is not a good idea, but the subject is so technical and daunting that many brewers do find that its difficult to get a handle on immediately. Brewing water chemistry is not that difficult. A couple of rules apply:
1. Know what your tap water profile is
2. Be aware of what your water alkalinity is and how it affects Residual Alkalinity.
3. Be aware of any ions that are already at moderate to high concentration and don't raise them to excessive levels.
4. Know that the mash grist has an effect on mash pH. Crystal malts and Roast malts have more acidity than Base malts. Beers with little of these accessory malts must be made using low alkalinity water. As the percentage of crystal and/or roast goes up, the brewing water can have more alkalinity.
The Water Knowledge section of Bru'n Water provides guidance in understanding all the components mentioned above.
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